The Pursuit of the Adolescent Beard

If I were King for a day and I could do whatever I wanted... I would probably be disappointed by the limited power of the monarchy in modern day Britain. But if I was to become King and with this change I gained some sort of sovereignty over the nation there would be one law I would wish to enact. “What is it David? Would you aim to create jobs in order to combat this country's staggering levels of unemployment?” Of course not, guess again. “Would you reform the tax system and make it impossible for the super-rich to avoid paying millions of pounds in tax?” Don't be ridiculous, I have no time for these petty scruples! For there is one issue closer to my heart than anything else in the world; one issue that makes my heart swell with passion and stirs great indignation within my soul, and if I could make one law in this country it would be this: you should only be allowed to try and grow a beard if you are able to attain full facial coverage.

I don't literally mean the whole face, forehead and all; I'm not that ambitious. I just mean the parts of the face where beard usually grows. The parts of the face which, if you were to lie down on your front and rest your head in your two hands, while looking upwards in a naïve and playful manner, it would be the part of your face covered by your two hands. Plus the upper lip too—that is also an important part of the beard situation.

If you do literally have full facial hair coverage—forehead and everything—then maybe overgrown but fashionable facial hair isn't for you, and you might want to shave that. On the plus side though, if you've got a forehead covered in hair then you essentially have fully customisable eyebrows. You can also combat the effects of ageing with a completely manageable hairline, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Growing up as a teenage boy among other teenage boy I encountered so many people trying to grow beards before their time. They would come into school with about twelve hairs on their faces; five around the left sideburn area, five around the right sideburn area and two inch-long hairs protruding from the chin.

“Have you noticed, David, I'm growing a beard?” they would say to me, audibly proud of their achievements. “Where's your beard? Can you not grow a beard? How ridiculous you look standing next to me and my beard,” they would gloat, while twisting both their chin hairs around their forefinger (the adolescent alternative to the classic beard-stroke manoeuvre).

My reply would always be the same: “No. Like you I've also grown twelve hairs on my face, but unlike you I didn't think my face needed to be adorned with pubes. Do you know who else has a beard like that? Have you seen that woman that walks up and down the Botley Road rifling through bins and collecting carrier bags? The one that shouts at you if you make eye-contact, with the questionable personal hygeine? The Bag Lady, that's right. You have the Bag Lady's beard.”

Then they would say, “wow David that's a pretty hurtful thing to say to your friend; you should try being nicer to people and then maybe everyone would like you a little bit more,” or some rubbish like that; I don't know I wouldn't be listening. “And anyway, even if I do have the Bag Lady's beard then you've said the word beard so it's still a beard.”

“No it's not. When a woman has twelve hairs on her face she has a beard; when a man has twelve hairs on his face he has to shave. That's a cutting edge observation about gendered societal responses to body hair for you there.”

“Thanks David, you are great.”

“Yeah, I suppose you're right.”

Where was I? Oh yes: don't grow a shit beard. If possible, go back in time and tell your sixteen-year-old self not to grow a shit beard.

Or, you know, do what you like. I probably won't say anything.

Trains for the Dissatisfied (fiction)

When the train to London slows to a standstill in front of me I realise that my carriage is broken. That might sound dramatic or even catastrophic at a push, but I can assure you it's not. Really the train is fine; it pulled up to the platform effortlessly and it will leave in the same way (effortlessly that is; it will continue on it's course through the opposite side of the station if you have to be so pedantic). The train is quite capable of carrying on as normal; the engine hasn't blown. The wheels are resting on top of the rails just as they should; they haven't become de-railed through a collision with an abandoned vehicle or a particularly large pile of dead leaves. No, the problem is not with the whole train but with a single carriage. “Which carriage?” I hear you ask. My carriage, as I said.

At least I can only assume it's my carriage. For you see my carriage—the one listed on my seat reservation—is carriage C, and working from the back of the train I've walked past E and D and found myself at a carriage missing a designated letter. The LED display on the side of the carriage that has provided me with the letters of the preceding ones seems to be out of order. This hasn't stumped me though, for I've managed to deduce, using my advanced knowledge of the alphabet, that the next carriage must be carriage C, and therefore my carriage.

And that is the extent of the faults with my carriage: the LED display isn't working, meaning that inside the train the seat reservations won't be shown electronically above the reserved seats, and thus those that have pre-booked seats are forced to contest with those free spirits who just turn up on trains unprepared and hope to find a place to sit. Like I said before: it's not a big deal.

In fact the problem is even smaller than one may have previously assumed, for there are dozens of seats available for myself and the other passengers wishing to find seats in carriage C of the 9.36 train from Cambridge to London Euston. I discard my reservation and find a seat facing forwards next to a window, which is all I ever ask of a seat on public transport. My satisfaction seems to be shared with all of my fellow passengers except for one woman, whose voice is inescapable:

“The seat reservations aren't being shown,” she observes, “we're not going to get our seats.” Although her language is plain her discontent is detectable. She has two small children following behind her, to whom I assume she is speaking but I doubt they're listening. While her comments may have been spoken at her children they were obviously meant to be heard by a wider audience.

A few moments pass and the ticket inspector starts to make his way down the carriage and the woman approaches him. The aisles are narrow and there's nowhere for this poor man to run.

“Why aren't the seat reservations being shown?” she asks.

“I'm afraid the LED displays aren't working in this carriage,” he replies.

“I have two kids and I went out of my way to reserve seats around a table so that the three of us could sit together. Now there are other people sitting in our places.”

“I'm really sorry about that.”

“Well that's not good enough.”

“I'm sorry but there's nothing much I can do.”

“I'm not very happy about this.”

“I know. I do apologise.”

“Hmm.”

The ticket inspector carries on walking and the disgruntled woman pauses before fitting herself and her two children into two seats; quite easily too may I add.

Why do some people insist on doing that? Why do they have to complain about insignificant things to people completely powerless to change anything? Of course that ticket inspector doesn't know how to fix the LED displays in a carriage. Even if he did have the electronic expertise to repair such a fault it's not part of his job anyway; he's too busy inspecting tickets among other things. Or maybe there are no other things, I don't know, but the point is that that woman was never going to get anywhere directing her complaints at him, and if she stopped to think for a second she would have realised that. Or perhaps she knew full well the futility of her whining but spoke up anyway just to spread a bit of dissatisfaction. I bet on the way here she had a go at her taxi driver about the traffic.

I can't see the point in getting hung up on these things; on the traffic or the weather or the price of fish or the Wi-Fi capabilities of your local Starbucks or the LED displays of a train carriage. Most of the time the problem isn't even caused by anybody you could point a finger at so why bother? It's hard enough to be happy without dwelling on these tedious grievances.

Thankfully the woman doesn't speak up for the rest of the journey and we make it to Euston unscathed. I think she realised rather quickly that two train seats provide more than ample room for the average woman and two tiny children, but I doubt she'll be hunting down the designer at First Great Western trains to thank him for such a spacious journey.